


Twilight Zone's 'Eye of the Beholder' 1960 Original vs 2003 Remake

by TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer



Category: Twilight Zone, Twilight Zone (TV 2002)
Genre: Analysis, Compare and Contrast, Episode: s01e39 Eye of the Beholder, Episode: s02e06 Eye of the Beholder, Meta, Nonfiction, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 12:41:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17939912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer/pseuds/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer
Summary: Warning: Contains spoilers for both episodes. Complete.





	Twilight Zone's 'Eye of the Beholder' 1960 Original vs 2003 Remake

I was rather young when I first watched the original episode, but I doubt I would have seen the twist coming even if I’d watched it when I was older. I don’t tend to register things such as faces not being shown and/or names not being given until after I've gone online and read about them happening.

Molly Sims, Maxine Stuart providing Janet's voice when Janet was under the bandages in the original, and Donna Douglas post-bandages Janet reveal in the original made Janet sympathetic, though, they had different interpretations of the character. Stuart’s take was more mature and world-weary, whereas, Sims’ was more outright emotional. I wouldn’t says Sims’ Janet was immature, but her vulnerability was significantly more exposed. With Stuart, on the other hand, there was a quieter rawness to Janet’s pain, and her complete unravelling was slower and built up a bit more organically. I talk more about Douglas' take near the end. 

One interesting changes is the original made it clear plastic surgery was not an option. In the remake, it’s implied plastic surgery was one of the things attempted.

I liked Reginald C. Hayes’ Doctor better than William D. Gordon’s. Hayes’ came across as a more conflicted, sympathetic character.

I do wonder if a black actor having the role was responsible for certain lines of Janet’s being excised. In the original, her response to the doctor’s telling her, should the procedures fail for the last time, she can live in a place with others who share similar deformities as her, she rants about how he’s really talking about segregation and refers to such a place as a “ghetto”.

There is a line or two about Janet’s face when the doctor is talking to the nurse that I wish had been kept in, but there was a risk of him being less sympathetic if it was.

Speaking of the nurse, Jennifer Howard was more matronly in comparison to Allison Hossack. It might have been better if Hossack was given some different lines to better characterise her as a young, moderner medical professional in contrast to Howard’s old-fashioned, old-timey nurse.

It is cool how both episodes firmly passed the Bechdel test.

When it comes to the ending, I have mixed feelings.

On the one hand, Chris Kramer was meh. I’ve seen him do good work in The Collector, but here, he wasn’t so much as bad as he was just utterly lacking in charisma or anything to make the character interesting. At best, I can say Walter Smith came across as nice enough and had some believable awkwardness when it came to dealing with an emotional fellow outcast, but it didn’t make the character likeable so much as inoffensive.

However, this being said, I did like how his take on Smith interacted with Janet more, and I especially appreciated there was no hint of future romance between these two.

One thing I never liked the original was the fact, they meet, Donna Douglas does a good job of having Janet being uneasy and repulsed by someone so, within this universe, physically deformed despite her own physical deformities, but then, they’re holding hands and staring into one another’s eyes, and the episode had ended on an air of ‘these two pretty people are going to leave behind these ugly people and be better for it’.

In the remake, Walter and Janet are two outcasts. He promises her, where they’re going, it’ll be easier to forget this fact, and because, he’s kind and she doesn’t have any other feasible options, she lets herself hope enough to go with him. When they walk hand-in-hand, it’s not romantic or even a true show of platonic affection; it’s a safety net and expression of solidarity. Maybe, she’ll finally find some measure of peace and happiness, and maybe, she won’t. Maybe, this man who’s taking her will be a friend, maybe, he’ll eventually be an antagonistic figure (though, I’m personally hard-pressed to believe this given Kramer’s acting) or maybe, his role in her life will end once they reach the colony.

The possibility they could fall in love isn’t in anyway excluded, but there’s no hint this will happen, either. There’s no spark of physical attraction the way there was with Donna Douglas and Edson Stroll’s take.

When it comes to Stroll, I can’t fairly judge him in this role. As far as I know, I’ve never seen him in anything else. He was handsome and his character didn’t show any unlikeable qualities. I bought Kramer’s Smith as more of an outcast than I did Stroll’s, but in both cases, I get the feeling the goal was to find a handsome actor who wouldn’t do anything to make the audience doubt Janet’s safety in going with his character, and in this, everyone involved succeeded.

Finally, I know this isn’t the point, but darn it, I want speculation about what the deal with this universe is. Where are all the interesting online theories?

Is it the result of something involving nuclear war? Is it some type of far-off future? Is it a universe where people naturally evolved to look like this? When it comes to people like Janet and Walter, are natural mutations responsible? Exposure to some kind of drug when they were in the womb? What exactly is the ratio of people looking similar to them vs those in the hospital? How did the fascist leader come to be?


End file.
